not the type of visitor which we allow here, but we had to break the rules this time because its parent is in the hospital, a terminal case.
Conway said softly, “I see.
A Monitor Lieutenant came into the room at that point and hurried across to O’Mara. “Excuse me, sir,” he said. “I’ve been able to find one item which may help us with the search for the visitor. A DBLF nurse reports seeing a PVSJ moving away from the area of the accident at about the right time. To one of the DBLF caterpillars the PVSJs are anything but pretty, as you know, but the nurse says that this one looked worse than usual, a real freak. So much so that the DBLF was sure that it was a patient suffering from something pretty terrible—”
“You checked that we have no PVSJ suffering from the malady described?”
“Yes, sir. There is no such case.”
O’Mara looked suddenly grim. He said, “Very good, Carson, you know what to do next,” and nodded dismissal.
Conway had been finding it hard to contain himself during the conversation, and with the departure of the Lieutenant he burst out, “The thing I saw come out of the air-lock had tentacles and … and … Well, it wasn’t anything like a PVSJ. I know that an SRTT is able to modify its physical structure, of course, but so radically and in such a short time …
Abruptly O’Mara stood up. He said, “We know practically nothing about this life-form — its needs, capabilities or emotional response patterns — and it is high time we found out. I’m going to build a fire under Colinson in Communications to see what he can dig up; environment, evolutionary background, cultural and social influences and so on. We can’t have a visitor running around loose like this, it’s bound to make a nuisance of itself through sheer ignorance.
“But what I want you two to do is this,” he went on. “Keep an eye open for any odd-looking patients or embryos in the Nursery sections. Lieutenant Carson has just left to get on the PA and make these instructions general. If you do find somebody who may be our SRTT approach them gently. Be reassuring, make no sudden moves and be sure to avoid confusing it, that only one of you talks at once. And contact me immediately.”
When they were outside again Conway decided that nothing further could be done in the current work period, and postponing the rounds of their wards for another hour, led the way to the vast room which served as a dining hall for all the warm-blooded oxygen-breathers on the hospital’s Staff. The place was, as usual, crowded, and although it was divided up into sections for the widely variant life-forms present, Conway could see many tables where three or four different classifications had come together — with extreme discomfort for some-to talk shop.
Conway pointed out a vacant table to Prilicla and began working toward it, only to have his assistant — aided by its still functional wings — get there before him and in time to foil two maintenance men making for the same spot. A few heads turned during this fifty yard flight, but only briefly — the diners were used to much stranger sights than that.
“I expect most of our food is suited to your metabolism,” said Conway when he was seated, “but do you have any special preferences?”
Prilicla had, and Conway nearly choked when he heard them. But it was not the combination of well-cooked spaghetti and raw carrots that was so bad, it was the way the GLNO set about eating the spaghetti when it arrived. With all four eating appendages working furiously Prilicla wove it into a sort of rope which was passed into the being’s beak-like mouth. Conway was not usually affected by this sort of thing, but the sight was definitely doing things to his stomach.
Suddenly Prilicla stopped. “My method of ingestion is disturbing you,” it said. “I will go to another table —”
“No, no,” said Conway quickly, realizing that his feelings had been picked up by the empath. “That won’t be necessary, I assure you. But it is a point of etiquette here that, whenever it is possible, a being dining in mixed company uses the same eating tools as its host or senior at the table. Er, do you think you could manage a fork?”
Prilicla could manage a fork. Conway had never seen spaghetti disappear so fast.
From the subject of food the talk drifted not too unnaturally to the hospital’s Diagnosticians and the Educator Tape system without which these august beings-and indeed the whole hospital-could not function.
Diagnosticians deservedly had the respect and admiration of everyone in the hospital-and a certain amount of the pity as well. For it was not simply knowledge which the Educator gave them, the whole personality of the entity who had possessed that knowledge was impressed on their brains as well. In effect the Diagnostician subjected himself or itself voluntarily to the most drastic type of multiple schizophrenia, and with the alien other components sharing their minds so utterly different in every respect that they often did not even share the same system of logic.
Their one and only common denominator was the need of all doctors, regardless of size, shape or number of legs, to cure the sick.
There was a DBDG Earth-human Diagnostician at a table nearby who was visibly having to force himself to eat a perfectly ordinary steak. Conway happened to know that this man was engaged on a case which necessitated using a large amount of the knowledge contained in the Tralthan physiology tape which he had been given. The use of this knowledge had brought into prominence within his mind the personality of the Tralthan who had furnished the brain record, and Tralthans abhorred meat in all its forms..
IV
After lunch Conway took Prilicla to the first of the wards to which they were assigned, and on the way continued to reel off more statistics and background information. The Hospital comprised three hundred and eighty-four levels and accurately reproduced the environments of the sixty-eight different forms of intelligent life currently known to the Galactic Federation. Conway was not trying to cow Prilicla with the vastness of the great hospital nor to boast, although he was intensely proud of the fact that he had gained a post in this very famous establishment. It was simply that he was uneasy about his assistant’s means of protecting itself against the conditions it would shortly meet, and this was his way of working around to the subject.
But he need not have worried, for Prilicla demonstrated how the light, almost diaphanous, suit which had saved it at Lock Six could be strengthened from inside by a scaled-down adaptation of the type of force-field used as meteorite protection of interstellar ships. When necessary its legs could be folded so as to be within the protective covering as well, instead of projecting outside it as they had done at the lock.
While they were changing prior to entering the AUGL Nursery Ward, which was their first call, Conway began filling in his assistant on the case history of the occupants.
The fully-grown physiological type AUGL was a forty foot long, oviparous, armored fish-like life-form native of Chalderescol II, but the beings now in the ward for observation had been hatched only six weeks ago and measured only three feet. Two previous hatchings by the same mother had, as had this one, been in all respects normal and with the offspring seemingly in perfect health, yet two months later they had all died. A PM performed on their home world gave the cause of death as extreme calcification of the articular cartilage in practically every joint in the body, but had been unable to shed any light on the cause of death. Now Sector General was keeping a watchful eye on the latest hatching, and Conway was hoping that it would be a case of third time lucky.
“At present I look them over every day,” Conway went on, “and on every third day take an AUGL tape and give them a thorough checkup. Now that you are assisting me this will also apply to you. But when you take this tape I’d advise you to have it erased immediately after the examination, unless you would like to wander around for the rest of the day with half of your brain convinced that you are a fish and wanting to act accordingly …”
“That would be an intriguing but no doubt confusing hybrid,” agreed Prilicla. The GLNO was now enclosed completely — with the exception of two manipulators — in the bubble of its protective suit, which it had weighted sufficiently for it not to be hampered by too much buoyancy. Seeing that Conway was also ready, it operated the lock controls, and as they entered the great tank of warm, greenish water that was the AUGL ward it added, “Are the patients responding to treatment?”
